


Call Your Mother

by Arati_Mhevet



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arati_Mhevet/pseuds/Arati_Mhevet
Summary: Elim, call your mother.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 23
Kudos: 98





	Call Your Mother

**Call Your Mother**

The house out on the Arawath Colony was not as grand as the one in the capital, which was a shame, but was certainly less work and Mila wasn’t getting any younger. After what she called in her own mind ‘the fiasco’ and Tain’s subsequent retreat from public life (no, let’s call _that_ what it was, which was a _flounce_ ) they had packed up ( _she_ had packed up) and made themselves comfortable here. He claimed to be proud to be the only head of the Order to have reached retirement, but she didn’t believe half of what came out of his mouth. That had been true for both of them. 

A year on, and quite what the plan was exactly for this retirement, Mila still wasn’t sure. Yes, they’d settled into a comfortable routine whereby he spent the morning in his office and the afternoon in the garden, but nothing happened, as far as she could tell. ( _Write your memoirs_ , she’d think sometimes, as she came to collect the tray and saw him brooding at his desk. _Go on – I dare you._ ) He was still reading daily intelligence reports, and some part of her half-expected him to come down one morning and say, “Start packing, Mila. We’re going back.” But then she would see the shadows lengthen on his face in the evenings and she knew the heart had gone out of him.

 _Too quiet, this place_ , she thought, standing at the kitchen window one afternoon, a cup of rokassa juice in her hands. Almost as if something critical was missing. In the garden, Tain moved around slowly, killing plants. Mila finished the juice in one quick gulp and washed the cup. He didn’t like to see her drinking rokassa juice. He thought it was vulgar.

“Did you know,” he said to her one morning, as she brought out his plate of _pritha_ eggs (perfectly salted) from the kitchen, “that the tailor’s shop is still open?”

“Oh yes?”

“One would not have thought there would be enough customers.”

That was the code name these days: ‘the tailor’. She put the eggs down in front of him and poured the _gelat_. “There is much to be said,” she said, “for presenting an agreeable face to the world.”

One day, while she was doing her mending (yes, you could replicate, but what a waste!), he came to find her, rubbing his hands together in glee. “Dukat’s plan to ruin Pa’Dar has backfired,” he told her. “He went to Bajor and tracked down all the records.”

“Who did?”

“Mila! Who do you think?”

“Well, I’m glad someone was on the case.” She looked up the files herself later. Pa’Dar had his son back, she saw. She wished them well.

Another evening, he wandered into the kitchen as she was clearing up after dinner. “Natima Lang has defected,” he remarked, running his fingertip over the worktop, looking for non-existent dirt. Irritating.

“Perhaps she’ll catch up on her reading,” said Mila. “Or take up embroidery. I’ve heard that people do all kinds of strange things to fill the hours when they suddenly have time on their hands.”

He didn’t like that. “ _I’ve_ heard,” he said waspishly, “that exile can become very wearying as the months pass by. Almost debilitating, in some cases.” 

“Yes,” agreed Mila, putting away the plates. “I’ve heard that too.”

The truth was, she missed him dreadfully. Not that she’d seen much of him anyway, in recent years, but she missed the boy. Cheeky, resourceful, talkative, charming, and very funny. Time after time, when she was supposed to be disciplining him, she would have to leave the room to go and laugh at his latest excuse. Yes, she missed that boy. One day he’d gone away, and the young man that came back was very different. Still resourceful, yes, still charming – but colder. Brutal. His. She doubted she would ever see him again. She couldn’t help hoping.

“The tailor’s not well,” he said to her, one morning, not quite meeting her eye, and she didn’t reply. She served his breakfast, went back into the kitchen, and waited for news. Days of this – circling each other, as he delivered cryptic updates, and she thought, _Well, what are you doing about it?_ Nothing, she imagined, curse him, and no doubt the other one was being as stupidly, as idiotically, as self-defeatingly _stubborn_ as always – and where, really, was this all going to end? 

Then the young doctor arrived. Brisk, clever, talking to Tain in a way that had got other men killed, so Starfleet it cut flesh – and impossibly, ravishingly handsome. Mila could not believe her eyes. Could not believe the sheer chutzpah of sending this man as his messenger. Flaunting him. From his _sickbed_ , for pity’s sake! Tain gave the boy tea (replicated – really, she couldn’t let him do anything), sent him on his way with everything he needed, and Mila went back into the kitchen and laughed and laughed and laughed. 

But the joke backfired. He was not, in any way, amused. He got worse. Couldn’t settle. His temper took a vicious turn. And then she saw the gleam return to his eye, that bright, almost frenzied, light. _This is it_ , she thought, with a sinking heart. _He’s planning something_. _Something big._ And she also thought, _You’ll never get away with it. Not without him. You’ll miss something, without him._

She waited for him to summon him back, but he didn’t. And one morning she woke to find him gone, and all the access codes handed over, and she waited for her son to call so that she could send him to clear up the mess.

* * *

_22 nd November 2020_


End file.
